Cats and other pets have a deep-seated natural predatory instinct. The oldest, simplest, most efficient and most beloved cat toy of all time is the moving string. There is no domestic cat that does not love to chase string. This activity brings out, reinforces, and satisfies their ingrained urge to hunt. Even the oldest, laziest cat is enticed by a moving string. Although numerous types of string toys and techniques for playing with cats are well known, they all entail a human having to move the string. Although everyone has some sort of string in his or her home, and this is the therefore the easiest way to engage a cat in activity, a “playmate” must move the string in order to entertain the cat. This task can get quite monotonous and boring. In addition, many cat owners do not have the necessary time to engage their cats in healthy amounts of playtime. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a form of this simplest and most beloved cat toy in an automatic fashion and thereby engage a cat in play while the cat owner or another playmate is not present or is too busy.
Various automated cat and pet toys are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,721—Mayfield et al. discloses a moving target cat toy with a motion sensor. U.S. Pat. No. 6,058,887—Silverman discloses an automated cat toy with a rotating arm. U.S. Pat. No. 6,892,675—Comerford discloses a cat toy that uses an electric motor to rotate a hunting decoy in an unpredictable manner. However, up to this point, there has not been an automated cat toy that has utilized the simplest, most efficient, and most enjoyed cat toy of all the time, a moving piece of string. Thus, there remains a long-felt and as of yet unmet need to provide a cat toy capable of entertaining a cat without human intervention. It would be desirable that the cat toy is attractive so as to be an asset to the decor of the home, easily set up, installed and that takes up a minimal amount of space.